Raising Bilingual Niños: Tip #1

One trick I’ve discovered for helping my kids learn Spanish vocabulary, is to use their old computer games in a new way. Many computer games allow you to go into the options and select a language. I change the language to Spanish, and ta-da! A baby-ish ABC game that your kids have grown out of, is suddenly a useful foreign language tool.

The video below shows my younger son playing a game called Sebran’s ABC. For those of you who have been wanting to hear Suegra, well, halfway through the video, in the background you can hear her trying to help my son cheat. My husband chastises her and tells her to let him do it. You have to have the volume way up, but it happens around 1:20 in the video. Also, sorry about the noticias in the background. You know whose fault that was.

To download the free game my son was playing in the video, go here: SEBRAN’S ABC

Your kids are good! If my 10 year old son played that game, he would have all sad faces on the screen. Thank you SO much for sharing this game with us. I heading over to download it now. A jugar en espanol se ha dicho!

I love the game! It will work for my wife and me. I have memory problems and the memory game will be great. My wife is also slowly learning Spanish and this should help. We really want Rosetta Stone but the price tag is really scary.

@ Luis – I’ve got plenty of suggestions, and while I’m sure Rosetta Stone has helped many people, I agree that it’s too expensive. Luckily, using a “program” is not even one of the ways I would highly recommend.

The best method is the natural method of language learning which babies all over the world use successfully – immersion! … That is to say, it’s best to be exposed to the language as much as possible, to hear people speaking it, and for people to speak it to you.

If being around native speakers isn’t an option, try watching TV in Spanish. Even having it on in the background – and Spanish language music as well.

I’m planning to give some more tips in the coming weeks, so check back :)

PS I tried making the pupasas for dinner tonight… I don’t think my corn flour was the right kind? They turned out very yellow compared to the one you were eating in the video and the texture was like a cornbread pancake with gooey cheese in the middle! BUT I did do the fun slapping/spinning/stuffing/patting technique for making them and got pretty good at it! (though MUCH slower than the ladies on u-tube) And with the cabbage salad and a Salvadoran pulled-pork tomatoey recipe that I found online, it was a very tasty and fun meal!
I will be looking for a better corn flour (or mixing half white wheat flour in it) next time.

Very cool. Can’t wait to hear more of your suggestions. Our verano de espanol fizzled out about a month ago….it turned into me repeating everything I just said in spanish….but my husband just got back from Bolivia, so maybe we can have a fresh start at it.